


the kids aren’t alright (there’s no light, no light)

by sleepingontheceiling



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Analysis, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8910838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepingontheceiling/pseuds/sleepingontheceiling
Summary: Because their story is incredible, but it doesn't look too nice. But it isn't supposed to look nice, it is supposed to make you feel something. And it damn well does.





	

He was raised to do one thing.

And it hadn't felt quite right. Something was different about him. Like he had wandered around too many crowded streets as a foreigner, or he was the background music to every person in the moving picture of space and time. A nobody at most and an outsider at best. But FN-2187 was just one of many, a number in the masses. Unimportant to the story, but still a part of it. Part of the whole, but not whole himself.

But he was someone who was beginning to see the truth and someday he would be brave enough to speak it.

To him, the others behind their masks were people. They were people who had grown up with him and while they didn't have real names they had faces underneath those helmets. Faces he knew. Mouths that could speak and laugh and lips that could smile and frown and eyes of different colors that could cry and blink away their hurt and see somebody for what they truly were.

That's the problem, isn't it? You can't always see. Especially not when you're a stormtrooper. Your eyes are as blurred as your mind and it's a stormy existence inside your head with only a stupid blank face to show the world for it.

Because he was never supposed to be soft or kind or empathetic. He was trained to be violent and harsh and unforgiving, to be used like a puppet on a string, prone to be struck down by the wind and life's games. He wasn't supposed to have these convictions, to know compassion or morals or choke up at the mere idea of having to kill someone. He was supposed to fight to death for his superiors, for everybody, for nobody - for anybody but himself.

He was used to being pushed around more than not, as someone who was consistently storming through life with strength, rather than starting out a complete weakling and learning to gradually overcome it. It was a constant, bitter truth of living and not a sudden reality.

You see, the greatest tragedy of all is not of misfortune but of misuse. When a person is not cherished for what they are but solely for what they can provide and what they can do. Because when people see you as a source of gratification, of convenience, they forget you have your own value. They don't see you, as you. This is how FN-2187 seemed to live his life. Not as a person, but as a tool.

Because when the First Order does something, they have to do it good. And they did. They messed him up pretty damn good.

So when his comrade died right in his arms, and the look on the prisoner's face felt like a punch to the gut, he questioned. He reacted. He was bold. It was against the Order's instinct that had been hammered into him over and over and over again. It was his own. For once in his life he did not what he was ordered to do, but what was right. It was what he needed to do.

He said no.

And everything changed.

Poe Dameron offers him a name. Finn. And then he ends up losing him minutes later during their escape. But he finds the pilot's jacket, the only thing left but his memory to ever show what had happened that day - and even though the sun is burning into his skin - he puts it on. Poe's jacket hugs him like an embrace he has always craved but never known and it gives him the momentum to keep moving forward on the planet of sand upon sand and despair upon despair and unknown upon unknown.

Finding BB-8 has given him a purpose. Poe Dameron's droid is found with an incredible girl who has given him companionship. Rey. Because there are certain things you surely cannot share without ending up liking each other a bit, and defying death together multiple times is definitely one of them.

And after that all he wants is to just be Finn. Because he always had a voice but couldn't use it and Rey has always had a voice but nobody to listen to it. All he knows now is that they are different people with different upbringings but they may not be as different as they'd think. They feel the exact same things.

Because the truth is everything you tell yourself when nobody else is looking.

Han can see right through him and it confuses him that the man could take a good look at him and see something nobody else has. He sees what it takes and it's not misunderstanding at all. It's when Finn starts thinking that maybe Han Solo does understand and he wonders how a hero could ever understand a traitor and how a legend could ever understand a nobody. 

Because he can't just know. But he... does?

It's like he knows what Finn is feeling inside his chest right now and he knows what he is thinking about in his head and he knows how he is remembering everything he has done and went through to get to this point. To get to today.

Han knows because he must feel it all - and probably more of it - himself. And it isn't necessarily something to always be so proud or happy about. And he has to be okay with that. He has to live with it.

It leaves Finn a bit more starstruck and bit less speechless.

So when he could have been selfish for the first time in his life, he doesn't. It would have been easiest to run, to leave and let someone else take care of this chaos that was created and start over brand new. He comes so close to doing it too. Because the truth is he has no desire for greatness but rather more of a desire for freedom. He'd been almost frantic about it, if someone had asked him.

It's almost bleeding out of him. It's why he had needed Poe and needed to get out and away.

Because it's so much easier to hide. It's the reason why so many people are lost. They simply don't want to be found. And while freedom calls to him, something else calls even louder. His heart is now beating Rey, Rey, Rey, Rey.

He's never known anything like it. Family, Finn wants to believe, is made up of people who will be there for you when you need them, and in return you will always be there for them. He is more frantic about Rey's safety and making things right for once and for all than anything freedom could offer him. 

Because everything that is happening somehow feels like his fault. Or it could be his redemption.

And suddenly, Finn has something to fight for.

//

Han knows he should have known better.

He is no longer as young and invincible as he once was. Because that's not how time works. That’s not how the force works. And that's definitely not how life works.

He has no right to pretend that coming back fixes anything. Han knows this. Because have you ever loved someone so much that you have grown to hate certain parts of them? Love is a weapon and it has left its mark. This life, this torn apart family of his, cannot just be fixed.

Bitterness has turned into regret. Frustration into vengeance. Everyone's chopping down trees now. Getting lost. Trying to protect themselves from everything they know, everything they believe could happen.

But it's too late.

That doesn't mean he won't die trying. Because he just might.

He just might.

//

Poe Dameron has always loved the sky.

It's in his family. It's in his blood. Funny enough, it's what keeps him grounded when he flies so high.

When he was younger he could have been found sitting on tall ledges and staring up into its vastness, wondering what life was like up there. Wondering what happens in-between the brilliant radiance of the galaxy and the darkness swelling between the stars. It was a question that was called out and it echoed on and he watched it bounce between the sun and moons and circle back around to him each time until he finally knew.

Flying gives him that answer.

He has his mother to thank for that. She was the pilot, she had understood his curiosity and desire. But then she was gone. His father had said that when they lost his mother the sun died. He didn't think it was true. It continues to greet him every morning and say goodbye every night after. But he still misses her.

As a kid he used to love running into the forest in the evening air with options of trees to climb and places to explore or even leaning out of windowsills to see the height of the ground from there with the breeze ruffling through his hair. It was the rush of things. Just right, just enough to keep him steady when he was soaring. Getting into that cockpit and grabbing the controls was perfection for someone who sought the ability to be something other than merely human. It was more and it was everything.

It's why he's the best pilot around. One with his ship, one with its wings. It is everything he was made for. He can truly fly anything.

But Poe should have learned to turn around and look at people the exact same way he learned to turn the controls. Sudden, but with caution, so he doesn't crash and burn. Because he did crash. And he did burn.

Missions can easily go wrong, it's a fact of life. They aren't meant to be easy, only meant to be completed. He just never thought it could be this bad.

He had awoken from being freed from the Order's captivity alone, without a ship and without his jacket and without his droid and without his rescuer and he found himself wondering about the brave young man he had barely known. One who had risked everything to save his life and he was struggling to understand the who, what, where, why and how of the situation after everything that had happened. It had felt like a horrible dream or a sweet nightmare. He didn't even know.

Poe had been captured and tortured and then crashed headfirst into the unknown. Headfirst into his survival and sand and guilt.

He already had some fading scars, from crashing before. Most experienced pilots do. But he also has scars of happiness on his face from laughing, wrinkles by the sides of his eyes that get deeper the older he gets. Proof of joy and jokes and laughter and happiness because otherwise he would be left screaming. They are strange scars all the same but these new scars in his mind, and the ones around his wrists from restraints just show him failure.

Because it circles, his head is now spinning in circles and his hands, they are shaking faster than BB-8 can spin. 

Poe had never seen such beautiful juxtaposition than between the itty bitty lines sitting in Finn's turned up smile and the truth resting in his large hands and the assurance hidden deep inside as he had inwardly panicked at the Starkiller base. And now it seemed he would never know much more than that.

Once he was finally back with the Resistance he had told General Organa everything about his escape and the ex-stormtrooper and she had helped maintain hope for his survival. "False hope is better than no hope," she offered, her voice gentle and caring. And Poe was quiet in return and allowed her words to fill up the air because he had needed to hear them. They had kept some false hope for him, even believing he was long dead or worse, yet here he was.

But Poe had heard her unsaid words loudest of all. The ones about time that had been erased and chances that were beaten into oblivion. How FN-2187 becoming Finn was along the same lines of Ben Solo becoming Kylo Ren. How it just takes one moment, one decision for everything to change, for sides to be drawn and taken and crossed and forgotten.

Because it's hard to ever question loyalty once it is switched for good.

There were stories about what happened and Poe knows them. He was old enough to remember them, but young enough to not remember everything. But he remembers things just like she remembers things, only in different ways. It's about not knowing but still trusting. It's about seeing the possibilities in everything. Because sometimes in life we all want what we couldn't and sometimes we only love what we actually could.

And Leia Organa was many, many wonderful things but proud was not one of them.

Allowance isn't quite acceptance either and they need some verification. Poe knows this better than anybody. When you wear your insecurities like pockets it's bound to get noticed. When there are holes and openings, something is bound to fall in.

Because they are all part of the Resistance here, with confidence bleeding out of their bodies from the wounds in their pride and hunger in their eyes for something to sustain their hearts. Leia likes to call it meaning. When there is still light, there is still a chance. Hope is not lost then, it is found. There can still be good in the bad. Her brother had taught her that.

They have a chance. They are both young and old and bold and cunning and brave because they were all nobodies once. They are nobody's technically, simply finding a place to belong all together for one reason. By unofficial definition, that is how nobodies most likely become somebodies; together. It's also how they fall apart.

Because Poe is strong and Leia knows that. She didn't ever question his commitment, only what his commitment could cost him. Because if you try to bend a person like a pencil they can surely snap. They might even break. They are only human and history tends to repeat itself over and over and over again.

And Poe will never forget the moment Ren was tearing through his mind. And Leia will never forget the moment her son tore apart her heart.

Guilt is a very dangerous thing, even more dangerous than hope or fear. If you don't watch out it will consume you like a burning fire and nothing can quite put out those flames.

//

Luke feels it.

It's so strong and sudden that he almost doubles over from the mere force of it. Voices are calling out and their howls and screams are echoing in his ears.

His own are silent.

**no no no no no no no no no no no no no**

One thing stands out - something is missing. Something is missing from this world, from his sister and from him.

Suddenly his face is so wet. His skin is drenched with this regret. It's so hard to breathe with this wide-eyed, blurry feeling deep down inside of him.

He has gotten old and tired and utterly defeated. He has seen so much, done so much and it has left him in this guilty, grieving state. He is here on this island, he is all alone, and any new hope for reassurance he may have had left is far gone. 

Luke wonders where the dreamy boy he was years ago is. Where the strong man he was not too long ago lives. If he is still inside him, hopeful for things to get better, while seeing the good left in everything. He wonders if he exists anymore. He wonders what he would think of him now.

He wonders.

Because who ever saves the hero? Who saves someone who could somehow save the galaxy but not himself?

He has touched the stars more than once but has not been forgiven. Not by himself. It brought back the weight of the world onto a hero's shoulders and the absence of violence had not touched him here since, despite the abundance of it in the galaxy. Not until now.

It's gone all wrong. It's wrong and horrible and bleak as the night. His nephew, now completely turned dark. His brother in everything but blood, now dead.

Oh Han. He is so, so sorry.

So Luke reaches out with his weary mind that is spinning. He reaches out with the hand he lost so long ago, the only one that isn't shaking. He reaches out with the force to wake. He can't hide forever.

It's not the time to be lost. It's time to be found.

//

She knows that she was left behind, she's always known.

She just doesn't know why.

Rey grew up alone. Also independent and invisible, like the stars. Because sometimes you can't see them too well and sometimes you can't even see them at all. But it's not their fault. They have no reason to hide their light, they are just there, just shining. But sometimes people can't even see the stars in front of them. It doesn't mean that they don't exist or they don't matter, it just means that they should be appreciated more when they are seen. Because they're not always unseen.

Young Rey was no one, but she mattered. Just like this Rey matters right now.

No one, no one, no one is the echo of her own heartbeat and it's currently beating so hard inside her chest that she thinks she might collapse from the mere power of it. Rey's used to breathing in hope like air, sucking it in to just stay alive for a while longer. She's never turned bitter. But she's tired now, and angry, no longer a child who cannot afford to care.

She's named after part of the brightness light in the daytime sky and it's the only light that now remains in this complete madness. The lightsaber has come to her and it is in her hands.

She is made out of stardust and stone and ice and desperation that she cannot hold back anymore. She can strike down the darkness with her light. The sudden warrior, the girl with fire in her veins, survival in her lungs and defiance in her heart. It was always in her. She's been breathing it from the very start.

But now it's for him. Finn is her friend and starting to feel like her other half. It isn't any weakness nor even romantic, rather automatic and natural. Losing him would be like losing a vital organ and having to live without a part of her, without sense of the world because of what was missing. Since they had met everything has been colorful and triumphant and terrifying, with dizzying highs and sharp, painful lows. She couldn't act like she wasn't different, that nothing had changed. 

Because everything had.

She's never had someone look at her the way Finn does, like she is something more. Like water is gushing untainted love down on top of her. He cares and it's nothing she's ever known to exist before and she wants to swim in the way it makes her feel. She wants it to soak her clothes. She's been parched for far too long and it's been killing her softly since the day she was left behind. 

It's all come to this moment. This is it. Her wrist clicks, her hands are steady with ruthlessness and the air fizzes around her with the buzzing of the sabers. This is everything she's been meant for. She cannot change what she refuses to confront and she refuses to back down now.

Like Han.

The gruff older man who would sacrifice everything for someone he loves. The one who thought hope wasn't lost yet. The one she watched get brutally murdered by his own son. There was nothing she could do then but there is something she can do now. For the one who had offered her an opportunity that no one else ever would have and she would have taken it in a heartbeat. So much can change in so little time.

So she will do this for that piece of joy again. She will do this for her dear friend, the one lying frozen in pain in the glittering snow behind her. She will do this because this is how heroes get made. Not by accident, but by a chance. By pure will.

Nobody ever taught her can't.

Rey has turned her own strength into a coat to wrap reassurance around her in this cold world. She has turned her strength into a coat as she has shivered alone in depravity. She has turned her strength into a coat and it is keeping her warm right now.

So she breathes. In and out. In and out. In and out. The force has called and awakened in her and it doesn't scare her quite like it first did. The force has connection and belonging. It's not power, it's a pattern and she feels it, she is living it. She has yet to understand what makes her understood but she feels it.

Ren is scared. She can sense it. But not of her... of himself. The force she found is completing her but when he found the force it must have gradually broken him into tiny pieces. The man confuses her, like a bunch of colors splattered around and she cannot see the picture it makes or the one it wants to complete. Because when people look at someone, they see what they want to see. Completed picture or not.

All she is seeing before her is a monster.

Because monsters don't just hide in tiny spaces, they don't just live in the darkness of this world. They exist in people, they exist in us. She is fighting this monster, the one inside Ben Solo, the who calls himself Kylo Ren. Because he wasn't born a monster but most likely he'll die as one.

The darkness and light collide and clash in the air, then break them both apart. The ground underneath is shaking. White is now running red with sticky blood. The snow is no longer as beautiful as it was once pure. Innocence is forever gone this day as victory emerges through blazes of fury and childhood dreams.

Because have you ever felt like you've been waiting for something that is never going to happen? And nothing ever does? This is her story. This is her life. Days ago Rey woke up alone in the desert. Now she has seen green for the first time with friends. Her eyes have opened to a world she has never known.

If only she could have known how very much she was like Luke in this moment. A starry-eyed kid becoming something more. Someone who was ready to try, even die, if it came to it. Someone who felt like a kid no more, who had to fight for a chance of home and people that are a steady foundation, arms that can keep roofs as protection over her head.

She's bent over now, crying little diamonds over the boy she hardly knows but has quickly come to adore. He has come creeping into her heart. Her tears drip onto his skin as snow flurries around them in chaos. It's a hideous, horrifying contrast.

The snowflakes fuse with her eyelashes and start melting at the touch of her skin. They are fluttering down, swirling like the thoughts running through her head. She is jealous of their ability to fly through the air and land wherever they please when they are stranded here.

That's when she hears it.

At first she thinks it's the wind, howling its sorrows at her. She wants to tell it to shut up, she has enough problems of her own right now. Or maybe the snowflakes are talking sweet to her as they dance around her head and the injured boy in front of her. But it's not - and as Chewie lifts Finn up, her tears have soaked the ground, wishing hope was still buried underground and a seed would sprout the goodness of life once again.

Because how else can you ever tell the world you're sorry? How else can you thank a person for their bravest sacrifice?

This is only the beginning.

Her name is Rey. A drop of golden sun she is, nothing less, nothing more.

//

Leia is hugging herself so tightly that she can hardly breathe.

The feeling descends upon her like a fickle cloud. She feels it. Sometimes bare, sometimes patchy, sometimes swallowing her completely whole. The loss.

It reeks of love, of longing. It echoes like the screeching of lost time, the absence of them. It's falling in drizzling circles around the room, soaking into her nostalgia and worn skin. She has lost so, so much and it's catching up to her now.

Leia feels the loss, the loss of air in her lungs. And she can only hug herself tighter. Even when there first was a war, everything was easy.

There was Luke. There was Han.

And then after, there was a victory and a little boy named Ben.

None of them are here with here now. None of them.

If she only then had realized the stupidity. Even birds will fight over crumbs on the ground... nobody, nobody is ever safe.

And it's much, much harder to be the one who stays.

//

Kylo Ren thinks the darkness is beautiful.

It is a mess, sure, but it is a beautiful one.

Because nobody wants to live in a world where ships drown in puddles of water, where invisibility is a universal superpower and where homes are empty shells of people. Nobody would want to live in a world where bugs get squashed without a moment's thought as to if they carry any value or purpose before they die.

But they do.

So there's something wild pulsing through his body as defiance stumbles his feet forwards, not backwards. He doesn't belong there. He belongs here, where he hears shouts and alarms and trees cracking and ground burning up around him as he is leaving it behind. It's destruction at its finest and it couldn't have been more glorious if it was caused by himself. Because he hasn't really lost. He just hasn't won.

He told Han Solo the truth, that he was being torn apart inside. It's not over yet. The girl hasn’t defeated him for good. Luke Skywalker is still out there and he hungers for game. He is not a man who can just sit and wait as the light wants to play. He will be ready.

Because good doesn't ever disappear. Evil just blooms instead. It eats and eats and eats at you until it sucks you in whole and then it grins in delight.

He can feel his heart thumping inside his chest. It's still there, beating on. It's just one battle. Always one. Because people aren't born either noble or wicked, it's all a confusion of conflict and memories mixed together inside a bare soul. It's what makes you, what defines you. One side, one choice.

So victory laughs and laughs and laughs in his face. Destiny is waiting.

And he laughs back.

**Author's Note:**

> Holy cow. This has been sitting in my docs for almost a year (since I saw the movie!) and it was time to get it out there. Feedback always welcomed and appreciated. 
> 
> Thx. 
> 
> \- han


End file.
